Most Disorienting Pop Star

[TheAlpha 3,830]

Taylor Swift Is The 21st Century's Most Disorienting Pop Star

There comes a moment in a lot of Taylor Swift songs where it becomes hard to sing along. It's sometimes a concept, sometimes a perspective, sometimes a phrase, sometimes just a word — but in that moment, you realize that this song isn't about you. This song is about Taylor Swift.

And that is part of Swift's genius (and part of her Achilles heel). In ways both subtle and obtuse, she makes sure that all of her songs belong to her. There's a reason there aren't many Taylor Swift covers — as Swift told NPR in 2014, through her lyrics, "People have essentially gotten to read my diary for the last 10 years." It's pretty hard to cover someone else's diary.

This is an unusual quality in pop music. So many radio hits blow up precisely because they could be about anyone. Rather than relying on a particular perspective, they tap into something universal. So many songs were written for one artist and performed by someone totally different (Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" was originally offered to Rihanna; Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" to TLC.) Certainly those songs carry different weight when sung by different people. But the themes transcend any specific artist.

To consume Taylor Swift's music — as so many millions of fans do — is to consume her. That includes the parts of her life that we sympathize with — the scrutiny, the bad breakups, the double standards, the loneliness. But it also includes the other stuff: manipulation, whitewashing, myopia, pettiness. And it means that our feelings about Swift's music will frequently hinge on how we feel, at any given moment, about what it means to be someone like her.

Swift uses tools from hip-hop to help fans become invested in her story, her struggle, her truth. But in many cases, to believe that Swift's truth is the full truth is to believe that she lacks agency, privilege or power. And that fact that she can make us believe that, even for a few bars, makes Swift the most disorienting pop star of our time.

http://www.wbur.org/npr/646422866/taylor-swift-is-the-21st-centurys-most-disorienting-pop-star

Spoiler

It’s a whole essay. This is just some of the things they wrote.

 

[Lextyr97 17,532]

I mean kinda?

[rumours 45,521]

2 minutes ago, TheAlpha said:

To consume Taylor Swift's music — as so many millions of fans do — is to consume her.

This has confirmedT my suspicion of indirect cannibalism rampant within the Swift fandom. 

[ChromaticPrincess 1,346]

1 minute ago, Rumours1977 said:

This has confirmedT my suspicion of indirect cannibalism rampant within the Swift fandom. 

[raragaga 8,069]

yet I relate to her music more than any 27 yo man ever should 

[ARTPOPSTER 4,228]

7 minutes ago, Rumours1977 said:

This has confirmedT my suspicion of indirect cannibalism rampant within the Swift fandom. 

The snake imagery!!!! Snake eating it’s own tail!!! It all makes sense!!! 

[Mulholland 1,052]

There are parts of this essay that are interesting, particularly this graf:

So is Swift. She has capitalized on that universal appeal of rap: centering the underdog, the underappreciated, the hated, the disenfranchised. She has taken this narrative and spun it on herself and those in her ilk: the young, white, wealthy and beautiful. And she has made so many of us believe it, even when doing so is an act of mental acrobatics: that she is a target, that she is treated unfairly, that she is misunderstood and people are being mean to her. And she has made us believe, by extension, that we don't have to have giant, larger-than-life rivalries to be the heroes of our own stories. A high school romance or perceived slight will do just fine.

But the conclusion that this ultimately makes her unique among pop stars or even "disorienting" is where it loses me. For one thing, music feuds have been around for longer than rap has existed. And celebrity feuds even longer. She's pulling just as much, if not more, from Bette vs. Joan or Madonna vs. Literally Everyone. She's too passive aggressive to really rise to the level of most rap beefs, so the fixation on that comparison is weird. 

And the argument that her music is so specifically "her" doesn't sit well with me. For one thing, aside from a few lines designed to raise eyebrows, her music, overall, is not terribly specific. And artists have long made incredibly personal, specific, and sometimes diaristic works that other people can generally relate to without being able to relate exactly. 

IDK, in short, I think this gives her waaaayyyyyyy too much credit for doing things she isn't even doing, because honestly? She just isn't that interesting. 

[JazzGa 14,348]

Lmao this is a ridiculous fluff-up for an utterly common trait amongst songwriters: that they write songs from their own point of view, about their own experiences. Are songwriters as popstars so rare nowadays that we are going to start giving out awards to people because they write songs about themselves? Cuz that's pretty much the norm. And what the heck does writing songs about yourself have to do with the word "disorienting"?   It's like a professional journalist took a 13 year old girl's thesis about "Why My Fave Taylor Swift is [Vocabulary word of the week]" and wrote a whole article out of it.

And I'll have you know, Mr. Author Sir, that I do indeed have a record! Four of them in fact, and they are all very uncool. 

[Ryusei 59,929]

Is this article about Iggy or Taylor? I can't tell  

This person makes it sound like Taylor has been doing hip hop her whole life (even though the person also goes on to state she is not a hip hop artist (you don't say)...) when she grew up with country and started off as a country star where lyrics like hers aren't uncommon lol 

Also the whole spiel with "She is white she can't be treated unfairly" is just facepalm material

[Pop Music 20,522]

I adore her wholeheartedly but you know when you've been going to shows for years and singing the lyrics "guess i'll just stumble on home to my cats" beside like 10 year old girls as a 17 year old boy is slightly cringey. 

[Mister Gaga 21,883]

Interesting read

[ryanripley 86,575]

[imnotyourbabe10 5,995]

Disorienting Pop Star made me think immediately of MIA.  In a very good disorienting, **** the system type of way...

(Gaga, too, of course)

[Robo Ga 14,460]

Lol her songs are so generic wtf is this writer smoking 

[StrawberryBlond 13,250]

I'm confused as to how the word "disorienting" fits this situation. The author doesn't appear to be using it correctly. But they're quite correct - to consume Taylor's music is to consume her and you never feel completely comfortable singing her songs as you feel like they're not for you, like you're acting a part. And it is surprising how she has managed to command a career based on this extremely specific way of writing as it would put many off. And what happens when, as we've witnessed recently, some of her fans start becoming averse to her because of scandal? If you've fallen out of love with her, you will no longer appreciate this super personal style she has going on in her lyrics. Being a lifelong critic of Taylor, I've never liked her precisely because I know exactly the kind of person she is through listening to her music and I don't like it. So it's amazed me that she has amassed the amount of fans she has. They must be listening to the same stuff I am, surely?

On 9/27/2018 at 2:33 AM, Mulholland said:

And the argument that her music is so specifically "her" doesn't sit well with me. For one thing, aside from a few lines designed to raise eyebrows, her music, overall, is not terribly specific. And artists have long made incredibly personal, specific, and sometimes diaristic works that other people can generally relate to without being able to relate exactly. 

IDK, in short, I think this gives her waaaayyyyyyy too much credit for doing things she isn't even doing, because honestly? She just isn't that interesting. 

I actually disagree her. Her work is overwhelmingly specific. One of the few songs I like of hers, probably my most favourite of hers, is Tim McGraw but I can only truly relate to that when I subtley change the lyrics, line by line. She sings about the way hy blue eyes shine, being in Georgia, dating a boy who drives a Chevy truck, keeping a box of his letters under her bed, referring to Tim McGraw singing her favourite song, dancing with this boy to that song, wearing a little black dress and faded blue jeans. Tons of specifics there that no one else but her will relate to. And of course, songs like Shake It Off and Look What You Made Me Do are all her. I remember thinking at the time that SIO made her so unrelatable as the song is all about the downsides of being famous. Old Taylor never sang about fame, she sang about her actual life behind the fame and that's how she got fans. So to see her fame grow despite her getting more and more emotionally detached and relatable was very strange to me.